Respecting Authority, Respecting God | Classic DT

[00:00:00] Real Truth Daily. This is Daily Truths with Dave Ahlman. Hi everybody, welcome back to Daily Truths. Respect for authority seems to be diminishing in this day and age. I'm talking about respect for teachers, for police officers, for bosses, for people in the church who are leaders in the church, for parents, and on and on and on.

[00:00:23] It seems like people are saying, hey, nobody can tell me what to do. And people are making up their own rules as they go. Well, the Pharisees did the same thing. We talked a couple days ago about traditions that the Pharisees were elevating on par with or even above the Word of God. And traditions, as we talked about a couple days ago, come and go. But the Pharisees were making up these rules and putting them in addition to the Word of God.

[00:00:53] Like, as we talked about a couple days ago, washing hands. That was a mandate for the priests, but the Pharisees were saying everybody ought to do it. Now, Jesus has a rebuttal for that when he says this in verse 13. He answered them, and why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, honor your father and your mother, and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.

[00:01:17] But you say, if anyone tells his father or his mother, what you have gained from me is given to God, he need not honor his father. So, for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the Word of God. Now, what's Jesus talking about here? He's talking about honoring the fourth commandment. And basically, the rule was, if your parents need financial assistance in their old age, it's the kid's responsibility to make sure they take care of them.

[00:01:43] But the Pharisees made up this law called Corbin that gave people the opportunity to say, well, I really don't want to give to my parents. I'm going to give it to God instead. And so they were invalidating, honoring the fourth commandment, honoring parents. And not only that, the Pharisees then could pilfer what was given to the church and use it for their own monetary gain. Or if the people said, you know what? I want some of that money back, and I want to use it for my own expenses.

[00:02:12] The Pharisees would say, that's perfectly fine. So they were invalidating, basically, the fourth commandment. Saying, ah, you really don't have to pay attention to taking care of your parents in their old age. That's not a big deal. If you want to give it to God, go ahead. And oh, by the way, we'll take a little bit on the side as well. Holy cow. So Jesus just nailed them in this passage. Now, what's this ultimately talking about? This is talking about taking care of our parents, right?

[00:02:41] Taking care of them, especially in our old age. But the fourth commandment goes beyond just parental authority. Okay? It is talking about governmental authority and police authority and church authority and obviously parental authority and teacher authority. Right? I'm thinking of a situation where a young lady told me recently she was at work, and her boss told one of the coworkers, like a 16 or 17-year-old young lady, to do something.

[00:03:11] And the young lady said, ah, I don't feel like it. I really don't want to do that. So this young lady who's a good friend of ours told us, I wanted to say, what are you doing? This is your boss. And when your boss tells you to do something, you do it. So here's the bottom line of this devotion today. God has established certain authorities in your life. Are you listening to them?

[00:03:39] Are you obeying them? Are you submitting to them? That's what the Word of God says. We aren't lone rangers. We don't dictate our own morality. We have the authority of God's Word, and God has placed authorities over us in the church, in the government, in the school, in the workplace. Why? Because when we submit to those authorities, we're submitting basically to God.

[00:04:05] And we are to revere, respect, and uphold, and look up to any authority established by God. So my question is, are you doing that? And if you're not, if God has established, like your boss, or like your parents, or like the government, police officers, if you're just invalidating that authority and saying, I'm going to determine what I want to do, you're breaking the fourth commandment.

[00:04:33] Now, obviously, the Pharisees were breaking the fourth commandment too, and Jesus called them on it. If we are not submitting to the God-given authorities that God has established in our life, may we repent, bring it before God, be absolved by the blood of Christ, and walk in newness of life. And that is today's Daily Truth. Have a great day in Jesus Christ. Thank you for tuning in to Daily Truths with Dave Ullman.

[00:04:59] Pastor Dave Ahlman is the pastor of Mount Hope Church in Boulder, Colorado. If this ministry is blessing you, please consider supporting us by sharing this channel with a friend. You can also like, comment, subscribe, or leave a review. This helps us tremendously. Come back tomorrow for your next Daily Truth.